This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache webserver on a CentOS 7 server with PHP support (mod_php) and MySQL support. LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP.

This updated tutorial shows the installation of the latest PHP versions (7.0 and 7.1) on CentOS 7.3.

1 Preliminary Note

In this tutorial, I use the hostname server1.example.com with the IP p 192.168.1.100. These settings might differ for you, so you have to replace them where appropriate.

I will add the EPEL repo here to install latest phpMyAdmin as follows:

rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY*yum -y install epel-release

To edit files on the shell, I'll install the nano editor. If you prefer vi for file editing, then skip this step.

yum -y install nano

2 Installing MySQL / MariaDB

MariaDB is a MySQL fork of the original MySQL developer Monty Widenius. MariaDB is compatible with MySQL and I've chosen to use MariaDB here instead of MySQL. Run this command to install MariaDB with yum:

yum -y install mariadb-server mariadb

Then we create the system startup links for MySQL (so that MySQL starts automatically whenever the system boots) and start the MySQL server:

systemctl start mariadb.servicesystemctl enable mariadb.service

Set passwords for the MySQL root account:

mysql_secure_installation

[[email protected] ~]# mysql_secure_installation/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation: line 379: find_mysql_client: command not found

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the currentpassword for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, andyou haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,so you should just press enter here.

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyoneto log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created forthem. This is intended only for testing, and to make the installationgo a bit smoother. You should remove them before moving into aproduction environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] <--ENTER ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'. Thisensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] <--ENTER ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone canaccess. This is also intended only for testing, and should be removedbefore moving into a production environment.

3 Installing Apache

CentOS 7 ships with apache 2.4. Apache is directly available as a CentOS 7 package, therefore we can install it like this:

yum -y install httpd

Here a screenshot of the installation process.

Now configure your system to start Apache at boot time...

systemctl start httpd.service

systemctl enable httpd.service

To be able to access the web server from outside, we have to open the HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443) ports in the firewall. The default firewall on CentOS is firewalld which can be configured with the firewalld-cmd command.

Now direct your browser to the IP address of your server, in my case http://192.168.1.100, and you should see the Apache placeholder page:

4 Installing PHP

The PHP version that ships with CentOS is quite old (PHP 5.4), therefore I will show you in this step some options to install newer PHP versions like PHP 7.0 or 7.1 from Remi repository.

Add the Remi CentOS repository.

rpm -Uvh http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

Install yum-utils as we need the yum-config-manager utility.

yum -y install yum-utils

and run yum update

yum update

Now you have to chose which PHP version you want to use on the server. If you like to use PHP 5.4, then proceed with the next command. To install PHP 7.0, follow the commands in chapter 4.1 and for PHP 7.1, use chapter 4.2 instead.

To install PHP 5.4, run this command:

yum -y install php

4.1 Install PHP 7.0 (optional)

We can install PHP 7.0 and the Apache PHP 7.0 module as follows:

yum-config-manager --enable remi-php70

yum -y install php php-opcache

4.2 Install PHP 7.1 (optional)

If you want to use PHP 7.1 instead, use:

yum-config-manager --enable remi-php71

yum -y install php php-opcache

In this example and in the downloadable virtual machine, I'll use PHP 7.1.

We must restart Apache to apply the changes:

systemctl restart httpd.service

5 Testing PHP / Getting Details About Your PHP Installation

The document root of the default website is /var/www/html. We will create a small PHP file (info.php) in that directory and call it in a browser to test the PHP installation. The file will display lots of useful details about our PHP installation, such as the installed PHP version.

nano /var/www/html/info.php

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Now we call that file in a browser (e.g. http://192.168.1.100/info.php):

As you see, PHP 7.1 is working, and it's working through the Apache 2.0 Handler, as shown in the Server API line. If you scroll further down, you will see all modules that are already enabled in PHP. MySQL is not listed there which means we don't have MySQL support in PHP yet.

6 Getting MySQL Support In PHP

To get MySQL support in PHP, we can install the php71w-mysql package. It's a good idea to install some other PHP modules as well as you might need them for your applications. You can search for available PHP5 modules like this:

yum search php

Pick the ones you need and install them like this:

yum -y install php-mysql

In the next step I will install some common PHP modules that are required by CMS Systems like Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal:

Now reload http://192.168.1.100/info.php in your browser and scroll down to the modules section again. You should now find lots of new modules like curl etc there.:

If you don't need the php info output anymore, then delete that file for security reasons.

rm /var/www/html/info.php

7 phpMyAdmin installation

phpMyAdmin is a web interface through which you can manage your MySQL databases.phpMyAdmin can now be installed as follows:

yum -y install phpMyAdmin

Now we configure phpMyAdmin. We change the Apache configuration so that phpMyAdmin allows connections not just from localhost (by commenting out the <RequireAny> stanza and adding the 'Require all granted' line):

9 Links

Over 20 years experience as Software Developer and Linux System Administrator. Till Brehm is the founder and lead developer of the ISPConfig Hosting Control Panel software (since 2000) and he founded HowtoForge in 2005 as a place to share Linux knowledge with other Linux enthusiasts.

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23 Comment(s)

Comments

I installed my server with this tutorial and I got PHP 7.1 at the end, so you must have done something wrong when you got 5.4. The guide shows to install 3 different PHP versions, use the option for the PHP version that you want to get only.

Excellent tutorial!!! I have installed phpmyadmin succesfully. I had been trying many things helpless, but I have found the final solution here. Thank you very much. This tutorial works.!!! God bless you.

Thank you, this is the ONLY tutorial that I have ever got to work 100% without any errors during the process. I have used many different tutorials for creating a lamp server and have always had to change at least one command. This is on point, I apprieciate that.